Online-consumers Typologization: How Online-shoppers Choose Clothes-selling Internet-sites

<p>In modern society, where technologies are being constantly developed and improved, the process of consumption is not only becoming more dematerialized, but many of its aspects are virtualized and adapted for the needs of electronic commerce. The achieved level of scientific progress not only allows us to view the products but also to make purchases in foreign online-stores. Our work is a continuation of the research &quot;The influence of cross-border trade in the retail markets in Russia&quot;, conducted in August 2013 by the Laboratory for studies in economic sociology. The goal of our work was the identification and analysis of types of Russian online-consumers; main tasks: (1) to reveal the structure of factors and motives that influence the consumers choice of the purchase-store; (2) typologize Internet-consumers on the basis of the revealed motivational structure; (3) describe the identified types of Internet-consumers on the basis of their consumption practices and socio-demographic characteristics. Building up our hypotheses, we relied on the number of theoretical and empirical studies that have examined the factors and motives that influence consumer behavior in the process of purchase, and searched the basis of constructing a typology of online-consumers. The main assumption of our work is that the motivational structure of the individual is hierarchical and determines its consumer practices and, as a consequence, the preference of online-stores of certain types. 20 expert in-depth interviews with Russian Internet-users, who are active buyers of both domestic and foreign Internet-stores, were conducted in order to collect qualitative data. As an approach to the data analysis we use a strategy of grounded theory. As the result of the analysis we managed to classify online-consumers into three types: (1) &quot;price-seekers&quot; (2) &quot;aesthetes&quot; (or &quot;hedonists&quot;), and (3) mixed type (or &quot;compromise-seekers&quot;). These types are characterized by a number of similarities and differences in their preferences, consumer practices and socio-demographic characteristics.</p>